Bats are our friends and we will be having a Linn County master Gardener share with us why we should be thinking this way.

We will also learn how to make a bat house so they no longer need to live in our houses.

Directions:
In Cedar Rapids, 1st Avenue is the main drag and runs east and west (if you use your imagination) I-380 and the river run North and South. The river divided the city east and west. So, on the east side of the river you will find 1st avenue and Cottage Grove Avenue at about 21st street (counting from the river) Turn right onto Cottage Grove. Go about three blocks (Forest, Linn, Eastern). Turn Right onto Eastern. They are about two blocks down eastern.

Bring your camera, questions and GPS systems, we are going to tour the ponds on this years tour before the sun sets. Note the earlier start time. There will only be a short business meeting if any.

Directions:
From Lanham’s house, described previously, return to Cottage Grove and turn right. Continue to 34th street (bottom of a long hill). Turn right. At about the top of the next hill you will find Lamp Light Lane on the left. Turn left onto Lamp Light Lane and then left onto Honey Hill Drive.

If you are coming from Mount Vernon Road, you will encounter the other end of Lamp Light Lane and will make two right turns, one onto Lamp Light Lane then right again onto Honey Hill Drive.

President, Monica Morley, called the meeting to order at her own house on this Thursday, May 11th, meeting. She began by introducing new members Marie & Tom Hamilton. (Monica’s sister and husband) Our scheduled speaker was a no show, and we later found out he couldn’t find the house. Sorry.

A photo contest was the highlight of the meeting and Monica told us the photos would all travel to the public library to be put on display along with club information to help promote the libraries scheduled display regarding books about ponds and waterscaping, June 19th- July 10th. We will later use the pictures at club information booths. How cool is that!

Minutes were approved as written. The treasure’s report will not be presented until the next meeting. The pond tour committee reported they had 9 ponds already confirmed for the tour and are looking at a couple more. Expo committee reported everything was a go. We asked for additional volunteers and invited everyone to the pot luck on Friday night.

In miscellaneous information, Larry Tharp reported that he had more fertilizer tabs. Greg Bickal mentioned that he still had Koi food for sale. It’s Ragan and is $1.00 a pound to all club members. Kacy Novak invited members to come early to her meeting for a social hour before she served us dinner. Monica presented the club library with a CD from Aquascape Ecosystem on the Complete Guide to ponding. I, Jackie, mentioned I had a gentleman call me looking for homes for several black goldfish he had. I also have bare root lilies still for sale if anyone is interested. Colors unknown, large tubers=$7.00, smaller ones prorated) Monica showed the club a new shaped bio ball she was considering using instead of lava rock in her filter. She wanted the clubs input on the item. Monica also had several gifts for all members including pencils with EIPS wrote on them, magnetized business cards with EIPS on them, and little fish Slinkies. Brady Lanham mentioned he had a Koi with a face sore and he purchased some medicated food from Pet Smart. After feeding it for a while he felt it was healing nicely and was recommending it to other members. We also had some discussion about the basic Koi Clay product that is being used around the country to improve water quality and fish color. Only a couple members currently use the product, and neither could actually say it made those issues better or worse. No marked difference was visible to them. Tim Nolan was asking about a drop test for dissolved O2. I said I’d email him a web site.

Door prizes were drawn for. We had water conditioners, bags and bags of great fish food, and even a water pump to give away. Lucky winners were: Tim Nolan, Robert Ward, Margie Thompson, Kacy Novak, Gill Morley, Quinn Novak, Larry Tharp, and Joe Hall. The meeting was adjourned but we all stayed to vote on the photo contest that Monica, Tim Nolan, and Curt Moore had arranged. During the month previous, members have been turning in mounted photos for our club contest. Everyone had a chance to vote on their favorites. I don’t know about the other members, but it was a really tuff decision for me. All the pictures were just excellent. We had pictures of frogs, and flowers, and water falls, oh my! Curt Moore and his picture of a night lit water falls was voted 1st place. He was awarded some fish food and a water pump. Both second and third place was won by Elana Murillo. She received fish food, a picture frame, and a whimsical frog decoration. And, I won Honorable mention so I received a frog decoration also. Monica supplied all the gifts and she even had a gift for all members that turned in a picture for judging. Thank you, Monica, for your many gifts and to Tim and Curt for your time and efforts. It was great fun, the pictures were all wonderful, and they will make great additions to our club displays in the future. They truly do represent the animal life, the plant life, and the shear beauty in water gardening.

Respectfully, Jackie Allsup

May 27 meeting minutes:

EIPS gathered at the pond on Kacy & Quinn Novak's in cedar rapids at 4:00 for a social hour and then grilled hamburgers, salads and deserts.

At 5:55 president Monica Morley called the meeting to order and thanked Kacy & Quinn for their hospitality.

An Expo report was not available but all in attendance agreed it was a great even. Monica noted that all suggestions for the next on should be submitted to Jackie Allsup in writing so the ideas will be available when planning begins.

Brady Lanham reported on the up coming pond tour. The pre-pond tour was discussed and decided it will remain on June 24th at 4:00. If the tour committee needs to have an additional meeting with the participants, that was encouraged. It was repeated that club members attending the pond tour on July 9th need to pay just like the general public. Lisa Lanham passed around a sign up sheet to work at the pond sites. It was suggested a checklist be created for the volunteers so they know what they are expected to do.

Carol Sindelar brought up again a suggestion to purchase new Tour Signs. Brady will contact a friend who is a realtor to see what they do with old signs that we could redo.

Dennis Sindelar's name was drawn as member of the month and will submit an article about himself and his pond.

Ok, we really did not have an official question for May but we received an inquiry
and have an answer to go with it. So here goes:

Hi tonight my husband took the net and also the filter out to clean and in the net was like this
slimy sac which was quite huge and lots of eggs in it we don't know if this is from the frogs
that have been in there or KOI? It was tiny little black spots.

What you have is either frog eggs or toad eggs. Frog eggs are in a large blob of jelly like material
and are usually attached to something in the pond, like a plant stem.

Toad eggs are long strings that the toads wrap around and around anything they can find in the
pond...plants, hoses, whatever. Sort of like black pearls. Both frog or toad eggs have tiny
black specks in them. Those are the baby tadpoles.

Koi eggs are very tiny and are referred to as adhesive eggs. They are sticky and are scattered
during spawning which causes them to be individually attached to plants. You would really
have to look hard to find Koi eggs. The might look like a clear, shiny, glass bead.

Hope that solves your mystery!

Do you have a ponding related question or problem? With over 85 members, EIPS is a tremendous resource of information. Beginning this month a new feature in the newsletter will give you a chance to ask that burning question and get feedback from the "experts " in the club. Email your questions to olywon@indytel.com...we will print them in the newsletter. Replies will be included in the following month's issue of Beneath the Surface. This will work only if you submit questions AND if club members with ideas reply (email answers to olywon@indytel.com before the last meeting of each month)...

Space is limited so be concise in both questions and responses. Let's have some fun with this.

Well, it’s finally over. I hope you all had a chance to come and experience our Expo event. If you didn’t, I really feel you missed a great opportunity to see some great domestic and imported Japanese koi. There were vendors present with everything “pond” related that you could think of and some of the newest technologies that the ponding manufactures have to offer. We had some great nurseries participating, offering pond construction and a wide variety of both pond and terrestrial plants. The speakers, who were about as expert as you can find, drew crowds all day.

It all started with Friday setup activities. Roger Thompson, Gary Hunerdosse, Greg Bickal, Carol and Dennis Sindelar, and Harry and I all showed up at 8:30 to help Prairie Creek Landscape set up their demo pond which was to be the centerpiece for the show. Watching Kevin Bailey and his crew work was fascinating. They lugged around 100 pound boulders and manhandled cut sod trips like super heroes. Roger brought in a coffee pot and we munched on Julie’s monster chocolate chip cookies all day. We measured and marked off booth areas, set up tables and chairs and generally prepped the building as best we could. One by one, local and out of state vendors began to show up during the day and we chipped in to help them unload and set up their booths. It was fun to meet each and every one of them and have the time to talk about their fish, plants, or products. We had one vendor call to cancel and 2 no shows, so we had a couple big holes in the floor plan, but everyone could pretty much spread out as a result. By afternoon, the place was a buzz with additional members dropping by to help and vendors starting to accumulate. About 3:00, Harry started a huge grill out back and began to BBQ some pork loin and chicken. The smells permeated the building and if you were one of the “chosen ones” you may have gotten a taste of what was to come if you visited the cook. Members started bringing in food to share and tables were set. I must say I was so proud of our club. Everyone was so helpful and so friendly. The biggest compliments I got from all the vendors were about how nice our group was and how great it was to be fed and treated so nicely. The final vendor unpacked about 9:30 and I locked the doors about 10:00 to go home. The day had absolutely flew by, but the hum of aerators in the vendor’s fish tanks made the promise that the next day would be full of excitement and even more fun as I knew we would be introducing the public and even club members to a new experience.

Saturday, the Sindelars opened the doors at 6:00 am to allow the straggler vendors to set up before opening to the public. By 8:30 the public was lining up outside the doors! It’s those crazy fish buyers. Just like garage sales, they know the early bird gets first pick of the fish! I, myself, had my eyes on this 12” Showa over in the 300.00 tank! It was calling my name all day. When ever I had a free moment, I tended to drift over to that tank repeatedly to look at it again in an attempt to justify spending that kind of money for a fish. (Which was not out of line by any means, but I have a vacation trip planned in the near future and 300.00 still buys a lot of gas) And actually, besides the Showa there was a Chagoi and a Shusui in the same tank that I would have loved to have taken home also. 900.00 for 3 fish, can you imagne? No, as usually, my way of getting these beautiful fish is to buy them small and raise those to a bigger size myself. Which I can do, but we’re a society of instant satisfaction aren’t we? At days end, I turned away as they bagged the fish to take back home with them. Opportunity missed? Maybe, but, if you went to the opening seminar, we learnt the three rules of ponding in which one was “There is always a better fish”! Anyway, enough of my ramblings, I haven’t even mentioned the line up of speakers we had. If I had one regret, it was that it seemed that many of the members didn’t get in on these talks as I would have liked. We truly had some expert speakers and the Q&A period at the end of the day proved just that as we listened to them argue over points of ponding and fish care. We had the hobbyist with all their technology and the naturalist, who doesn’t believe in any of it, all explaining their sides of various issues. I must mention and thank many times over Kacy Novak, who spent the entire day introducing the speakers and running that whole side of the Expo. Her help allowed me to run around, visit, and just plain have fun with the people and day. A steady stream of people kept most volunteers busy all day. Everyone was such good help. There were absolutely too many of you to thank individually. Vendors gave the club many, many great items to give away. We had many gifts in the 200.00 dollar or more range. Monica’s sister and Josh Spece’s Grandmother both donated beautiful Koi quilted wall hangings. These two ladies spent hours creating these works of art. I can go on and on thinking of great things that people did all day! At the end of the day, as the crowds dwindled, everyone again helped vendors pack it all up. We locked the doors by 8:00 and everyone ran home to introduce their valued new pets into their new homes. (Which I hope was a quarantine tank.) In closing, I want to reiterate a big thank you, to all that helped. You should all be very proud of what the club presented that day. I know I couldn’t be happier. This was not a one person operation! Thanks to all the committee members who have been working behind the scenes since this all started. At one point of the day, I was standing near the front door. Earlier, I had passed a gentleman with this crazy ball cap on that had a big plastic koi hanging off it. I said “Hey, nice hat!” He smiled and said something back to me, which I didn’t understand a word of. I later found out he was a deaf man, which explained the speech impairment, but it didn’t matter cause his smile was as big as his fish hat and he understood my comments. He had to be quite a character to be wearing such a big koi hat. Anyway, there came this Kodak moment, which I didn’t get a picture off (dang it) but he was on his way out. With his big koi hat, he was caring in one hand a big bag of plants and hyacinths and in the other arm he was balancing this huge bag of water with 3 or 4 larger koi in it. His smile was from ear to ear! Maybe you had to be there, but I thought it was so cool! He seemed in 7th heaven, and hey, that’s what the day was all about.

* Donated $800.00 for flowers and trees for landscaping at the Walker Park and Historical Society. Planted
a maple tree near a historical school in Walker IA.

* Donated $805.00 to the Historical Society at Independence for landscaping around the mill area.

* To the city of Quasqueton for a handicapped ramp by the river. $312.00

* Donated $1000.00 to the Old Creamery Nature Trail at Vinton for landscaping at the Vinton entrance and
to the Vinton Parks and Recreation Department for the pond at the miniature golf coarse in Vinton
$1000.00

* To the city of Springville $1000.00 for a fountain for the city park pond.

* Donated $500.00 to the Buchanan Historical Society so the Master Gardeners could do landscaping work
at the Lee Mansion in Independence.

* Donated $750.00 to Macbride Raptor rehabilitation facility.

* Donated to the City of Cedar Rapids IA Parks and Rec. $500.00 for a bench along the Cedar River Trail
south of the Tait Cummins Park area on C Street.

The Cedar Rapids Public Library will be featuring our Photo Contest pictures on: June 19, 2006 thru July 10, 2006. This is great exposure for our club, and upcoming pond tour. Thanks again to members taking the time to share their pictures with us. A special thanks to Amy and Nancy form the Cedar Rapids Public Library for including our club in their display of Water Gardens and Ponds. Make sure you stop by to support their project.

To keep it easy to remember, lets just say the newsletter deadline is the Monday after the last meeting of the month. So if you are the member of the month or an officer or committee chairperson and need something in the newsletter, get it to me as soon as possible. Thank you

A few helpful hints—both for you and for me. If you are submitting an item to the newsletter, please:

* If at all possible, please send it via e-mail. I know some of you do not have a computer and e-mail and I will be very understanding in those cases. But if you have access, please send it to me in that manner. I already spend over 8 hours a month putting the newsletter together, retyping just makes the task longer.

* If you have click art to go with the item. Again, send it via e-mail. It adds a lot and scanning just does not do it justice. Click art does wonders to draw attention to your information.

* And finally, submissions do not need to be long articles. I am always in need of little snip its of information to finish off a page.

Tell us what ever you’d like to about your water garden. Here are some ideas to get you started:

* How old is your water garden?
* How long have you been a water gardener?
* What do you enjoy most about your water garden?
* Favorite water plants.
* Do you have fish?
* Do they have names?
* How do you spend your “ponding” time?
* What unique things have you done with your water garden?
* How long have you been in the club? What made you join?

Deb & Roy Gaddis were hot air ballooning across this housing development in Cedar Rapids when they noticed this one yard that had no lawn, just a beautiful garden.
As they got closer they noticed it was more than a garden. There was a pond and a stream! It was beautiful. They thought this person needs to join the pond club. But you can not just land a balloon in the drive way and invite them to a pond meeting.
So they just enjoyed the view. The swirls in the design, the reflective waters, the colors. Beautiful.
Until...they realized: That’s Elena Murillo and Monica & Gill Morley’s Pond!

I come from a generation that contains names like Susan, Kathy, and Linda. The boys were Bob,
Dick, and Mike. It’s not a popular baby name currently, but all the Richards I know now go by Rich.
They sure don’t want a nick-name of Dick anymore! Jesh, and to think Dick and his sisters Jane and Sally
are the reason I can read today!

Some of us grew up with more names in our lives than others. Yes, we are the ones who named our
pets, our stuffed animals, and even our dolls. I loved my Barbie’s and Ken, little sister Skipper, and best
friend Midge. I’d say that this kind of eliminates the men in our club, but then again… my brother Bob
had his share of GI Joes and although they were all “Joe” they did have a name!

My dog’s name is Bandit. He’s a Pug, and has a black mask and the curly tail just like the little dog
of an action cartoon from the mid-60’s, Johnny Quest. Lots of people have never seen this cartoon, but
Curt and I both loved watching Johnny and his little dog Bandit travel the world. Each week a new dire
event occurred, but Johnny and Bandit always seemed to come up with a way out and end the show as heroes,
safe and sound.

Our cat is a Siamese, although he sports a lovely Irish name: Magee. For information regarding his
name ask Tim Nolan. I think it was his suggestion when we went through a long dinner which involved
listing names and then voting them off, just like American Idol judges. All I know is I’m glad Magee won
the vote instead of Curt’s choice of Brutus. Magee is long and lanky, and he’s just not a Brutus. Well, except
you might want to check out the bites and scratches on Curt’s arms sometime.

What other things have I named in my life? Pond critters of course! I am one who firmly believes
in naming your fish and anything else that lives in your pond. It’s a lot easier for me, because we only
have two Koi and ten goldfish, but that’s a bigger family than I come from, and I have friends who have
that many or more siblings!

Are your fish named? I am convinced that mine know their names when I sit by my pond and talk
to them. And since I’m over at Nolan’s a fair amount, of course they also have a number of names in their
pond as well! The problem there is with about 50 fish (well, it seems like that many when they come for
food!) it gets a little hard to remember their names! Especially since so many of them are offspring/
relatives/distant relations to each other, and depending on how many wine coolers you drink those darting
orange bodies start to look alike! Linda and I can identify more than Tim, but that’s just because sometimes
we name another one and he knows nothing about it! We named one Spot together, but A & W was
already named before I was consulted. (I bet you can guess his colors!)

Tim is convinced it’s harder to say good-bye to a named fish than one with a secret identity if the
unfortunate event of a death besets the pond. I disagree with this. For me, it’s just as hard to say good-bye to a pet with a name as well as one without. And my fish are my pets. Our Koi are distinctly different: a Tancho Sanke and a Ki Mitsuba. Since I am influenced by television they are named Tonto and Kemosabe from The Lone Ranger.

Some of our names have no story at all behind them. Thus, the large white goldfish is Whitey.
This was Curt’s choice, not mine! I’m more of a people kind of person. So our black goldfish is Sammy
Davis Jr., and the red one is Lucille Ball. I think I am showing my age by choosing the names I have!

Sadly, some of the names that have been chosen for my pets are no longer working well. In
late April I saw Lucille Ball and Sammy Davis Jr. chasing Whitey around like mad, forcing her up
against the walls of our small pond, deep into the ritual of spawning. Whitey just doesn’t cut it as
girl’s name for me, and I’d seriously question the sanity of any parent who named their son Lucille!
And as for Sammy, well, in the past month he’s gone from my prized one and only black goldfish
to this orange fish with a black stripe down his back. So should I change his name to Michael Jackson?

I looked into the process of changing ones name on the State of Iowa website. Technically, I could
change all of their names, since they are minor children under the age of 14, so I don’t need their approval. But at $100.00 per petition I’m just not sure they’d really appreciate my efforts to make it cost effective. And that’s assuming Curt would go along with this, because if he wanted to contest it then we’d end up with court dates, and I’m certain if I ever end up in court I’d really want a lawyer! Cha-ching! More money… lots more money! Besides, in Iowa one can only change their name one time, so I think it would be best if they decided what to do when they reach age 18.

We have a couple frogs in our pond who also may be suffering identity crisis. They are quite social,
and it pleases me greatly when they’ll stay out even when I am just a foot or two away. But the only frog I’ve ever known is Jim Henson’s famous Muppet, Kermit. So they both get called this. Does this put me into the same category as George Foreman, who has named all his sons George? Yikes!

Our latest child came from the Expo. We bought a lion head goldfish from Southwest Koi. Yes, we
were told we didn’t have room for another fish. But they were so cute! So, our pond now has an even dozen
fish, and I am hoping Whitey’s attack does not produce more. And in keeping with what seems to be a habit,
we went right to the media for a name. Curt thought of it. On New Year’s Eve this year we went to The Lion,
the Witch, and the Wardrobe film in Whitewater, WI with Nolan’s. We were staying at a lovely B&B, and
this was our hot evening entertainment. Anyway, the wise and heroic lion is named Aslan. I loved the thought
of naming our chubby calico with the funky body after a majestic creature.

I have two acquaintances who kept the same pronunciation of their names as given by their parents, but
changed the spelling. Michael went to Mikel, while Jeffrey went to Geoffrey. Personally, I prefer the spellings they started out life with. I have never researched why C.S. Lewis chose the name Aslan for this most powerful character in his Chronicles of Narnia books. But I’ll bet you a quarter that he never intended Curt to tweak the name. It seems he’s added an extra ‘S’ to out little Aslan… and I bet you can guess where!

The Tropical fish hobby has been a part of my life since I was a kid; breeding Angelfish and selling them to local shops while still in my early teens. So as an adult, the idea of a pond just seemed like an opportunity to have a really big aquarium.

Pond = Large Aquarium = Bigger fish. YES!

Our (wife Carol, children: Dana, Rick and Mike) first pond was actually a series of 13 footed bathtubs set into the slope and other places around our back yard. On the slope they would cascade into the next. That was in the 80’s and the fish were fancy goldfish; Ryukins and Fantails. The plants were mostly Anacharis and then floating Tropicals like Water Hyacinth and Water Lettuce.

In both our ponds and aquariums I enjoy the natural look: rocks, driftwood and native plants. Currently in our pond, the plants are mostly loose in the pond; not potted, just rooted in the rocks in the bottom. In the bathtub ponds we used driftwood and Hosta to conceal the plumbing.

We moved in the mid 90’s and had to remove the bathtubs but did not bring them to the new address, no hill. But in 98 and 99 we researched and planned the pond with a friend. The main goal was to use some specific rocks we had found for the water to flow over as it exited the falls box. We spent hours staring at the rocks on the driveway, moving them this way and that, until they were just so, and ready for water to flow over. My friend Chris who does car body restoration, built the falls box to fit the rocks.

Also during this planning time we responded to an ad in the Gazette about FREE farm rocks. A gold mine to me. But… they were north of highway 20. I live just north of highway 30, not close. But …. They would haul them …. For a price. Well, actually the final “price” was cheap for the 30 tons of rock we got. Just in case you can not visualize 30 tons, 30 tons equals TWO very large dump truck loads. We had them dumped, dirt and all, on the street side of the house (we live on a corner) and spent the summers washing and sorting the rocks into piles. We actually discovered three boulders within the pile that were so large we could not move them and they became the basis of another garden. People would stop, roll down their car windows and ask what we were doing. The reply, “Oh, this is a government sponsored archeological dig.” If you can say that with a straight face, they believe you. Especially the government sponsored part.

By this time our sons were in their late teens and “we” dug the 4 ft deep pond ourselves. We traded the beautiful black garden dirt to my mother for some river gravel that became the “dry creek” paths around the pond. It took us one month to get from the ground breaking to water ON. It was easy to work the long hours because we were so excited about having a pond. We moved some established Hosta from other parts of the yard for landscape and the pond blended right into the yard like it had been there for years. It’s 25 x 15 size fills the side yard and is enjoyed equally by our neighbor who’s porch gazebo and kitchen windows also over look the pond. Jack says the toad’s singing reminds him of his childhood. The first pond plants were harvested from a swamp in Johnson county. Yes, we asked the DNR first. It was OK. Thin cattails, Plantain and Arrowhead plants.

We originally stocked it with Koi from Kloubec’s and some from Blade that needed an emergency home. But we were newbies and lost them all the second winter when our winter precautions failed and the ice froze over. We have learned from this mistake and now have backup precautions. The second stocking included more Koi from Kloubec’s and then we had the good fortune to purchase a couple really nice Japanese ones from Blade and win a couple even nicer ones from Blade at a EIPS meeting. (Love those FREE door prizes). We wanted to keep the numbers down to 8 but in 2004 there was a spawning and 7 fry survived in the pond. Also that year we took in a soft ball size glob of hair algae with Koi eggs in it and after loosing half of the fry THREE TIMES, we ended up selling 300 Koi to EIPS members and Blade. It was a fun experience but I am not sure I will ever do it again. We keep an albino Channel Cat in the pond to keep the population down. He was so cute when we got him at a local pet shop but is about 24 inches now.

We don’t have chairs around the pond, we have sitting stones: large boulders with divots on the top that conform to your body when you sit. The natural look.

In 1989 Carol and I started an aquarium maintenance business. We keep about 70 aquariums running for local businesses, homes and hospitals. It is great “JOB” because it is a job doing my hobby and I can always take the time to have a coffee break, out by the pond. 10 o’clock is the best time, the sun shines straight to the bottom of the 4 foot hole and you can see the creases in the liner and the snails sliding along.